How To Stop Your Dog From Pulling On Walks

Posted On June 25, 2018

Keep the walk comfortable for you and your dog with good quality dog collars

When going for a walk with your dog outside, you are exposing it to surroundings that are going to be full of distractions. These distractions include other dogs, people, wildlife, plastic bags, trash cans and even balloons. Your dog naturally wants to investigate these distractions. Therefore, having control of your dog while taking it for a walk isn’t easy, especially if you haven’t trained it properly. As the owner you can’t compete against the environment and your dog will choose chasing after a squirrel ever time over making your walk across the park comfortable. Your Dog also wants to have a comfortable walk in the park too. So, make sure they are wearing a good quality dog collar it is easier to train them if they feel comfortable.

Find treats and other pet products to make your dog’s training sessions easier

You need to create a key phrase like “Stop Pulling”! This key phrase will be a command that will teach your dog to stop pulling while on your walk. To teach your canine what this command means you will need to lure it in with a treat. While walking and your dog decides to pull, immediately stop and say your key phrase. Once it completes the command give it a dog treat. You can buy all sorts of pet products and treats to lure your dog. Slowly phase the dog treats out overtime.

At this point the dog clearly knows to stop pulling? But will it stop in an open environment with lots of distractions? The best way to go about this is to use these distractions to your advantage. When the dog enacts on these distractions that is what you call high frequency behaviour. For example, chasing a squirrel or a tennis ball. On the other hand, the behaviour of not pulling or sitting are low frequency behaviours. Use a high frequency behaviour such as chasing a squirrel or a tennis ball as a reward for doing a low frequency behaviour such as sitting or to stop pulling. Buy some pet products online to use as the high frequency behaviour rewards. When you reach the park or you are at a checkpoint in your walk use the pet products you purchased as high frequency behaviour rewards. Only use them if the dog stopped pulling and behaved while you were walking to the checkpoint. The dog will thank you for this and be happier as you are motivating them to do what they want.

Punishment is necessary

Now there are certain times where your dog must not pull. This includes pulling to aggressively jump on someone else or pulling to go on to a busy road. You need to let the dog know that this is clearly out of bounds. A good punishment for every time they do something that is out of bounds is the “down stay” punishment. That is when the dog must sit on something for a long period of time and when it moves from that spot you calmly tell it to go sit back down on it. If it ignores you, you turn your back to it and you don’t continue the walk or offer it any food. This punishment should be used and practiced at the home before trying it out in an open environment.